To increase the safety of vehicle occupants, more and more functions are being integrated into the seats of vehicles, these functions being controlled and monitored electronically on the chassis side. Among these functions, in addition to the monitoring and triggering of airbags integrated in the seats, are also queries concerning seat occupancy and seat belt buckles, as well as child-seat detection for the optimal triggering of occupant restraint systems.
In general, data is transmitted in vehicles by bus systems via cable. This type of data transmission has proven itself. However, for vehicle seats, there is the problem that if the seats are mounted on rails allowing movement on the chassis of the vehicle, the cables must be tracked during a movement of the seat. In addition, the cables should be installed so that they cannot be damaged, and they present no danger of stumbling for the occupants of the vehicle. The disassembly of the seats presents another problem. For this, particularly for vehicle types such as vans or sports utility vehicles (SUV) whose passenger compartment should be easily variable, the cable connection must be releasable via an easily accessible plug connection, and the cables and plugs remaining on the chassis side must be stowed away in the vehicle floor.